Compliant Mechanism Based Backbones for Continuous Manipulators and Robots

The key part of a continuous backbone manipulator or robot is the backbone. A backbone is composed of several backbone modules that are assembled together in series. This paper proposes a new simple backbone module, which is a compliant mechanism. Compliant mechanisms are employed here due to their advantages over rigid body mechanisms. The compliant mechanism based backbone module is referred to as the basic compliant backbone module. An analytical model of the basic compliant backbone module is derived, showing that the stiffness of the basic compliant backbone module along and about the backbone axis is much higher than the others. The analytical model proofs the desired degrees of freedom of the basic compliant backbone module. Some other symmetric compliant backbone modules, designed by combining several copies of the basic backbone module in parallel, are also introduced in this paper. Continuous backbones, built by the proposed compliant backbone modules, enable not only to bend apart from the backbone axis but also to transmit force and torque about the backbone axis. Additionally, an application example of a proposed compliant backbone module is introduced.